Through the Eyes of Your Guests: What Makes a Good Wedding?
Photo by AMP PHOTO
No matter what the party is, everyone wants to have a good time and this holds especially true for weddings. Consider your guests when planning and they’ll look back on your wedding as one of the best they’ve been to.
Invitations
Just like everything else it seems, keeping your guests happy starts with an invite. It’s nice to include “and guest”, especially if someone doesn’t know many of the other guests. It gives them someone to spend their time with and will make them feel welcome. Don’t include and guest if you know your guests partner well or if they have been together for a long time. To avoid offence, use their name. For married couples address the invite to “Mr. and Mrs. ______”.
Short Waiting Times
Make your guests wait six hours between ceremony and reception and they won’t remember it fondly. While time is needed to take photos, touch up your hair and makeup and put the finishing touches to the reception hall, keep it to a maximum of two hours. Make people wait too long and they’ll loose their celebratory high.
Location, Location, Location
Make the instructions on how to get to your ceremony and reception clear. You don’t want your guests driving all over town trying to find their way around. It will just leave them grumpy. Try to hold your ceremony and reception in close proximity to each other to make matters easier.
Food
If you are holding your reception around a mealtime, expect to serve food. People will assume that they are eating at the reception if it’s right in the middle of lunch or dinner and if they come hungry and are not fed, it will cause problems. Be careful about the food you serve. Take your own preferences into consideration, but remember if you’re a fan of wildly exotic or rare foods, your guests might not fully appreciate it if they can’t recognize what’s on their plate.
Seating Arrangements
Seating charts can be a big stress factor when planning your wedding reception. There will always be people that don’t want to sit anywhere near other people. Try to be accommodating and separate those that you know will have issues. Guests that do not know many people can be sat together as conversation will be easier than if they were sat amongst a group of good friends.
Receiving Lines
Consider only having the bride, groom, and parents in the receiving line. This way, everyone will be able to offer their congratulations to the only people that need it and the reception can get underway quicker.
Keep Speeches Short and Sweet
Let your wedding party know you would like to keep the speeches short. Ask them to say a few kind words about you and your partner but leave out what you did each year since they met you in kindergarten. Explain to them that the guests will be more appreciative of this. There aren’t many people who like to speak in front of crowd so if they can get away with giving a brief speech, they will appreciate it too. Make the speeches early in the evening. People will drink more as the evening goes on and the more they drink the looser their tongues will be.
The Bar
Your guests will remember if they had to pay for their own drinks or not, guaranteed. Many people assume their drinks will be paid for. But it can be very costly to pay for one or two hundred people to drink all night. An alternative to having an open or cash bar is to have an open limited bar. Choose just a few beverages and pay for the guests to drink those.
